


they say we are asleep until we fall in love (and I'm so ready to wake up now)

by enjolraspermittedit



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Jay Gatsby Lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 02:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11198793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolraspermittedit/pseuds/enjolraspermittedit
Summary: Jay Gatsby survives getting shot, faking his own death and fleeing West Egg. Nick Carraway then falls into alcoholism, believing that the man he loves is dead. Needless to say, he is a bit surprised when Gatsby shows up at his doorstep a few years later, and he has no idea how to feel.





	they say we are asleep until we fall in love (and I'm so ready to wake up now)

I have been drunk many times throughout my life, although many of my drunken periods all blur into one. I suppose it started a few months after he got shot, and it still has yet to end. 

I had every reason to believe that Jay Gatsby was dead. I _saw_ his body. I was at his funeral, one of the only ones there - it made me sad but not surprised to find out that the wonderful Jay Gatsby did not, in fact, have numerous amounts of friends. Just the owl-eyed man and me, although my feelings toward him have always been much more than platonic, something I never managed to tell him.

I can't give an exact date for when I began to drink heavily. At first, it was a casual thing; I would feel terribly sad and grief-stricken about Jay, so I would have a drink or two to take my mind off of it. I was always told that things get better with time, but the reverse happened with me. Each day I became more and more depressed over the fact that Gatsby was dead. I asked myself a million questions - _What if I had told him that I loved him? What if I stayed with him that day? What if, what if?_ My guilt and grief caused my tendency to drink to get worse, and I had no desire to stop.

Even on the occasional good day where I could delude myself into believing that I would be okay, I still consumed bottle after bottle, as it was now a craving, regardless of how I might've been feeling.

I couldn't recall the last time I talked to anyone. Jordan, Daisy, and Tom were out of my life, just like Jay. Sometimes I would get a call from Jordan or from my cousin, but I always found myself ignoring it.

No one ever came to knock on my door, and I never left home except to get more alcohol, or to go sit in front of Jay Gatsby's house and ask myself what happened.

It'd been roughly a year or two since that fateful summer day, I believe, but I cannot say for sure, as I had completely lost any and all indicators of time. Gatsby believed that the past can be repeated, perhaps I believed that the present can be avoided. Although I cannot recall the day or time when it happened, I can recall what I was doing. I was sitting down on my sofa and staring at the window, no bottle in my hand for once but my heart full of sadness.

There was a knock at the door, and my first thought was Daisy Buchanan or Jordan Baker. It took me about a minute to will myself to get up, but eventually I managed to do so, trekking towards the door and opening it, not caring who was at the door but perhaps having a few guesses.

Jay Gatsby was not on my list of guesses - why would he be? My drinking never allowed me to entirely forget, no matter how intoxicated I was - and yet, there he was.

My first thought was not relief. My first thought was not happiness. My first thought was disbelief and an assumption that I had been hallucinating. He looked roughly the same - stocky build, soft blond hair, shining bright blue eyes, and that dazzling smile that I never managed to get over or forget. I blinked a few times, expecting the man in front of me to disappear before my eyes, but instead he stayed right there, staring, and eventually speaking. "Hello, old sport. Long time, no see." 

I don't know what compelled me to do it, but in that moment, I slammed the door in his face and got as far away from that room as possible, crouching down in my closet where I kept my hidden booze supply, trying to calm myself and think rationally. He wasn't there. He wasn't there. There was a dream, surely, or I'd completely lost my mind, because it was impossible for him to be there.

I went back downstairs and opened the door again, and he was still there, looking at me in the exact same way. Hundreds of questions rushed through my brain, and thousands of feelings, but the only thing I could choke out was, "How?"

"Am I allowed to come in, old sport?" Gatsby asked. "I believe I have some explaining to do."

Any snide remark that I wanted to make caught in my throat, and I nodded, leading him inside. Even throughout my distress, I managed to keep my house relatively clean, something I am grateful for, because I did not want him to know what I had become.

We took a seat on the couch, and he stared at the wall, not quite looking at me. He spoke in a low voice, as if he was telling me a secret.

"Needless to say, I never died. I had to pretend though, old sport, and I hope you understand. When George Wilson shot me in the pool that day, the bullet was barely enough to scrape me, but a metaphorical part of me died, and I had to get away. I was in Europe - what parts of it don't matter, and I don't even know if I could tell you - I had to leave all of this behind. I figured no one would care too much, as Daisy does not love me and I do not have any friends otherwise, something I always knew but was never quite ready to admit. But something...something drew me back here, and I'm not sure what it was, but here I am again. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone yet, though.You...I felt as if you were the only one deserved to know, at least for now."

The rational response would've been for me to happy, as Gatsby was alive after all. And yet, in that moment, I was the furthest thing from happy. I was _mad_ \- he just left me, without a word, no warning, left me and had me believe he was _dead_ , coming back only as an afterthought nearly two years later and then daring to imply that he never had any friends when I was right there beside him and in love with him the whole time. 

In that moment, I wanted to hit him, something I never expected to want to do, but when I raised my hand all I could bring myself to do was take his own in it and break down into sobs, like the little boy that I felt like I was in that moment. I was a child, I was elderly, I was only in my early thirties but I felt like a baby and an elder, all at once. 

Jay was not expecting this reaction, but he pulled me into a hug and began whispering apologies into my ear, and I didn't know what to do, because nothing could have prepared me for this situation.

I allowed myself only a few minutes of weakness, breaking free from Jay's embrace (had I been calmer I likely would've been completely flustered over the contact) and wiping my eyes quickly, arranging myself into a confident position on the couch, looking right at Gatsby and sitting up tall.

"You know, you could've told me," I said. "You could've stayed. You could've contacted me and let me know you were okay! But you didn't! You're wrong, Jay, you're wrong, when you say you don't have any friends you're wrong because I'm right here! And I was right here all throughout that summer too, but you were too blinded by your affections and desires for my cousin to realize that! I'm a mess, Gatsby, and all because of you! You're the reason I've become a drunk hermit. You...you clearly never cared about me, because if you did you wouldn't have treated me like this!" It wasn't like me to yell at him senselessly, but I wasn't even sure who I was anymore.

To my surprise, Jay did not yell back, nor even try to argue or try to defend himself, perhaps he'd changed as well. He merely sighed and gave me a long look. "I know," he said. "That's why I'm here now, I want to fix things."

"Well, I don't think that's possible, because you can't repeat the past, just as I used to tell you."

"But I can change the future," he told me. "I can...I can help you. Help _us_. Get you to drink less, visit you more, anything it takes to make you feel as happy as you were in that summer."

"Oh, but I wasn't happy," I said. "Not quite. You remember how much you wanted Daisy, right, and how desperate you were for her, yes? Surely you didn't feel happy in those moments."

"I wasn't," Gatsby agreed. "But what does that have to do with y-"

I cut him off. "You didn't let me finish. What I'm saying is...you weren't entirely happy during that time due to your desire for the unattainable, yes? I...I had some of those feelings too, although I never said a thing. Why do you think I'm so bad right now?"

"I don't- I don't get what you're trying to say, old sport, are you referring to the fact that you believed me to be dead?"

"Yes, but also no. I- I loved you, Gatsby. Still do. That's why I do this, because I could never handle not being able to be with you. You had your green light across the bay, in front of her house. And I had my golden light, the lights of your house, right next to me. Unlike you, I actually knew it was impossible, so I never saw much point in telling you. Looking back, I wish I had, perhaps then I could've gotten you to stay."

"You love me?" Gatsby asked, and I don't think I'd ever seen him look so surprised. "I never would've guessed that. I suppose I always had some affection for you as well, but of course that's not right, and I will admit that it didn't outweigh my love for Daisy. However, with her gone and us both here..." He stopped speaking then, but I knew what he meant. 

Now, I was not overly drunk in that moment, but when he said those words, I certainly felt something similar. My mind went completely blank, but not enough to forget his words to me. 

I realized that he was expecting a response, so I nodded, perhaps a bit too eagerly. "Yeah! Yes, of course. I'm not the man you remember, though. I'm not okay." I believe that was the first time that I actually admitted it to someone. 

"That's okay," Jay told me. "I'll help you."

And as he said those words, the only thing I could do was hold hope that they were true.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song "Dust And Ashes" from _Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812._  
> This is my first Natsby fic, and I am currently planning a multi-chapter one (not connected to this one).  
> You know, unless I chicken out and decide to not post it.


End file.
